


Nightmary but not so Scary

by ScribbleScribe (Sauny)



Category: Wander Over Yonder
Genre: Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Wander Cries, death mention, traumatic past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 13:59:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6054235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sauny/pseuds/ScribbleScribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A request sent in about Hater and Wander cuddling and making out, which lead to some hurt/comfort and bad nightmares.</p><p>Tumblr: http://scribblewrites.tumblr.com/tagged/nightmary-but-not-so-scary/chrono</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hater

He wakes to the memory of a nightmare, something dark and clawing that threatened him from beneath his foot. He trusted his heart more than his brain in that moment, listening to every beat that told him there was a danger that was _very real_ and _very near_.

He peeked out from under his sheets, only brave enough to poke out his horns and the top of his head, and stared at the darkness curling around the bed posts. He could hear Captain Tim peacefully snoring to his right, undisturbed by the overlord’s panic as he scrambled to pull the cord on his lamp.

Light filled the room as he managed to turn it on, sending the shadows under his bed and back against the doorframe. He calmed just enough to loosen his death grip on his sheets, gazing around the room to spot any irregularities. He checked his lamp, dumbbells, shoes, bed, lump… He blinked.

Hand raised, he shuffled away from the lump underneath his sheets. It moved, up and down, breathing, as he grimaced. His heart had been _right_ for once, and it beat harder as he reached down to rip the sheets away from the moving, living, thing in his bed.

“Hater?” Wander blinked the sleep from his eyes, concern flooding his face, “What’s wrong?”

He quickly aimed his arm at the floor, startling Tim and Wander as he left a dark scorch mark by his lamp.

“Oh my goodness!” Wander scrambled over to the edge of the bed, leaning over and picking up Tim, “Are you alright, Captain?!”

Hater paused, fright making his spine rigid before anger took its place, “Are you really worried about him?!”

He pulled the savage pet up onto the bed, hugging him tight to his chest despite the acidic drool making a new hole in the sheets, “Did you hear his lil’ cry? Poor fella is probably scared half to death!”

“What about me?!” He threw up his arms, taking Tim from Wander and dumping him back in his own bed, “Pay attention to me!”

“Aw. Sorry, Hater,” He smiled, patting Hater’s hand until it was pulled away, “Were you havin’ a nightmare?”

He grumbled, now stuck between wanting the attention and not wanting it from Wander, “Maybe.”

Wander was oddly silent after he said it, and when he looked over the lack of any movement was even odder. He frowned, waving a hand in front of Wander’s face, “Universe to Wander, stop doing that. I mean it, it’s flarping creepy.”

“Sorry,” He was quiet, quiet enough to confuse Hater and lower the skeleton’s defences. He moved forward, taking the opportunity, and wrapped his arms around the overlord’s waist, “I’m sorry you had a bad dream, hater.”

His arms acted on instinct, pushing the small wanderer away from him. He caught the hurt expression for only a second, before it was replaced with something mixed with understanding. Wander sat back, crossing his legs and smiling softly at him.

“… What are you doing?”

“Well, when Sylvia has a bad dream she doesn’t like being touched either,” His smile grew, happy even after having a hug cut short, “So I just sit and wait ‘till she’s all better! It helps to have a friend watching your back, or at least that’s what she says.”

He waited, half expecting Wander to break out in a grin and launch onto him anyway, yet even after what felt like half an hour he still hadn’t moved. Hater looked away, shifting his shoulder uncomfortably as he rolled and laid down with his back to the nomad, “I’m not Sylvia you know.”

“I know that, silly. Just trying to respect your boundaries!”

He rolled back, “Since when?!”

His smile faltered a bit, “Nightmares are no joking matter, Hater, they can be really scary and no one should feel unsafe in a hug.” He nodded at his own words, crossing his arms, “Hugs aren’t supposed to make you feel bad. That’s just plain wrong!”

The overlord groaned, pulling the sheets over his head, “That’s just..! That’s stupid!”

“Well I’m not going to give you any hugs until you feel better, and that’s final.”

That… That didn’t actually sound as good as it should have. He grumbled under his breath and sat up; cursing the orange banjoist and his stupid smile and his silly attitude and anything else he could think of with only half his brain functioning on ‘awake’ levels. He reached out, taking the other’s entire torso in one hand and bringing him to his chest. The small nomad let out a quiet squeak, smiling once he’d caught up with what’d happened and returned the embrace.

“This is so stupid…” Hater slung one of his arms over the wanderer, drawing him closer and situating him snugly between his pyjama gloves and his chest. The little fuzz ball actually seemed to be enjoying being jammed into the space like an abused teddy bear, Hater couldn’t help smiling as he even wrapped his legs around the sides of his ribcage. He was far too small to make it even halfway around, the attempt was pretty amusing.

“Feeling any better?”

He shook his head after a moment of thought, looking away from Wander and settling for hooking his chin behind the wanderer’s head. The other laughed, muffled by the fabric of Hater’s clothes, and curled right into the new space Hater’s body had made. He passed the warm fluttering by his spine off as remnants of his heart’s panic, and the weird (and kind of nice) feeling that passed over the front of his pyjamas as Wander shifting.

“Want me to stay?”

“No…” He tightened his grip anyway, growling weakly when Wander returned the sentiment.

“Well, I’ll just stay as long as you need me,” He could feel the nomad grinning, “Never hurts to help.”

“Just, shut up,” He shut his eyes, reaching out blindly to turn out the light. His arm never left Wander’s side, still pressing them together to keep the lingering shadow monsters at bay.


	2. Wander

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More nightmares but this time it’s with Wander

He still remembered his home planet, he still remembered the way the grass smelt and the trees grew and even the way the sun would set over the horizon. It’s the things he doesn’t want to remember that visit him, though. In dreams he sees the world ending, he sees his home on fire and the forest he’d treated as an escape blown apart into nothing more than rubble. He sees people he cares for screaming, crying, throwing themselves into danger to protect those that are already dead.

In his dreams, he runs. He always runs. 

Sometimes he gets away, but other times he gets caught. He found himself trapped, his leg crushed underneath a fallen beam from a small townhouse, with no one to help him. His voice was lost to him, he didn’t have anyone to call so he kept his mouth closed. The fire licked at his arms, his face, and the world spun in terrifying agony as he burns away with no one to stop the walls from shaking, crashing, pushing him up and down and up and-

“WANDER.”

He startled, wincing at the sudden crash back into reality. The walls turned into just him, his arms being shaken and his head lolling back and forth on his pillow. The ceiling of Hater’s bedroom greeted him as the shaking stopped, and when he looked down the bedroom’s owner greeted him with a frown.

“What were you doing?! You were making weird noises!” Hater let the nomad’s arms go, sitting back down in front of him, “You kept breathing really hard, no amount of sleep needs that much breathing!”

“’m sorry, Hater,” He sat up, rubbing at one of his eyes as the lingering traces of the nightmare clawed at his brain, “S'just a bad dream.”

“Sounded like more than a-,” He paused. Wander watched Hater slowly reach out, the gloved hand turning and running two fingers along the fur on his cheek. He resisted leaning into it, instead blinking in surprise when the glove came back wet.

“Are you… Crying?”

“Maybe a ‘lil,” He wiped his own hands under his eyes, brow furrowing just enough to be noticeable as both became tear-stained, “Haven’t had one that bad in a while.”

“How long’s a while?”

The smaller alien thought for a moment, “A few weeks?”

The silence weighed heavy in the air, doing all the speaking Wander’s mind would’ve rather not heard. It was near suffocating, and he could imagine it in the air like thick black smoke curling around them, choking the life out of them.

“Wander,” Hater broke the spell, bringing Wander back for a second time, “What’s going on? You’re being weird.”

“Am I?”

The overlord gave him a look.

Wander sighed, “Nightmares can get really nasty, you know?”

He nodded, reaching out again to wipe away fresh tears from Wander’s fur.

“Sometimes they kind of just,” He motioned with his hands, making a tipping gesture, “Overflow, get a bit too much for the Ol’ brain.”

“And they make you be weird? Or more than usual anyway.”

“I s'pose so.”

Hater’s hands had moved to cup the nomad’s face, thumbs occasionally shifting to clear away escaping liquid from Wander’s eyes. He leant into Hater’s left hand, shutting his eyes as his shoulder and neck was pet softly, his voice calmer than it had been, “Can I have a few minutes? ‘Fore you yell again?”

Hater nearly spat back a reply, old habits still alive and well, before wrangling that part of himself into silence, “Fine.”

“Thanks,” He smiled, real despite the stains on his face, and shifted closer to the skeleton. In a careful manoeuvre, he was placed into the other’s lap and kept against Hater’s heat-radiating chest. The dull buzz of electricity held inside Hater swallowed the echoes in Wander’s mind, the sound of something familiar and safe comforting him better than sheets that sometimes became bonds. 

Hater’s hands began the path up and down Wander’s spine, scratching every now and then in places the overlord knew would cause a positive reaction. He did manage to ignore the mussed fur around the nomad’s hands and shoulders, only smoothing it over rather than bring attention to it, which was surprisingly just as effective in slowing the small, frantic, beating of his heart.

“There’s always fire in my nightmares,” Wander started, words hesitant and so un-Wander like that Hater instantly payed them his full attention, “Lots of smoke, too.”

“S'weird…”

He hummed, “It’s a memory.”

Hater had nothing to say to that, so he rubbed down Wander’s spine once more and hoped that’d be enough. 

The world outside the skull ship kept turning, oblivious to the two inside who were curled up to each other. Clouds rolled overhead, light and free of rain, and stars with planets of their own shone through them. 

After what felt like a night of its own, Wander sat up in Hater’s lap. His soft, orange, arms looped around the overlord’s larger ones and held them over his small chest, guarded behind rubber and bone infused with electricity. 

“I’m glad your not in my nightmares,” He nodded down at the bed, prompting Hater to lay down on his side with Wander still protected within his grip, “It’d sure be nice for you to scare off some of those bad ones, but I think I’d rather you out here.”

“I don’t get you,” He frowned, looking down at the nomad.

Wander laughed quietly, “Favourites should only be for good dreams, and reality of course.”

“Well… Good, I guess,” He looked away, subconsciously shifting his left arm to cover more of Wander’s upper body.

The nomad’s smile softened, and he leant up to press a soft kiss to the underside of Hater’s jaw. In a whisper, he explained, “Thank you, for being gentle. I appreciate it a whole bunch.”

“Don’t expect it again,” He muttered, fully aware he’d probably do it again if the wanderer asked, “You don’t get special treatment just because you’re fuzzy and cute.”

“Aww,” He cooed, muffling giggles into one of Hater’s arms as the overlord got flustered. 

The world kept spinning outside, free of fire and nightmares. Clouds drifted and revealed two pale moons, as the two inside the skull ship drifted off once more.


	3. No one has Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one has any nightmares

Hater missed the little weirdo on nights like these, when the skull ship hardly snored and the watchdogs didn’t patrol past his door every ten minutes. The loneliness usually just settled as a dull weight in his chest, anchoring him to his bed as he slept and dreamt of conquering and holding a certain fuzzy hand that was off wandering.

But the hand wasn’t wandering, and neither was the person attached to it. He was here, in the ship and down the hallway inside a room that no one was guarding, with the overlord.

“You alright, Hater?”

He blinked slowly, coming out of his daydream even slower, “Yeah, m'alright.”

“Wanna scooch over just a lil’ then?” He indicated to the spot beside the skeletal alien, “I’m small but I don’t think I’m going to quite fit that.”

He mumbled quietly, shifting over to let the other take a seat. The air was still, the atmosphere that of an early morning where no one was really meant to be awake. He spread his fingers on the bed, watching the sheet crinkle around it, before a small set of fingers joined his own.

“Your hands are cold tonight,” Wander’s eyes weren’t on their hands, “You must be freezing.”

Hater opened his mouth, about to remind the wanderer that he was, in fact, ‘made of bone and could barely feel the cold anyway, and if he could he would most definitely not admit it’ before he paused. His fingers curled, allowing room for Wander to lock their hands together.

“Yeah… Pretty cold,” He looked to the side, fiddling with the fabric of his night-hoodie and trying to ignore the prickle along his arm as Wander shifted just close enough to touch. The presence pulling away made him turn to look, immediately regretting his decision as Wander moved back into his personal space and into his lap. His eyes were glued as the small nomad took his arm and held the overlord’s hand between them.

He didn’t dare speak, but nodded when asked if he was okay. He was way more than okay, when he could feel the warmth of Wander seeping into his sleepwear and into the cold space behind his sternum, when Wander gave him that half asleep look that was laden with things he couldn’t name.

“What are you thinking about?” Wander looked up at him, settled back to chest with their hands still locked together in front of him. Hater watched the wanderer’s chest lift and drop as he breathed, moving his fingers to brush some of Wander’s fur, “Nothin’.”

“Well, I’m thinking about stars,” The nomad blinked slowly, sleepily, with a smile softer than his fur, “There’s a lot of constellations that look like you.”

He hummed, half-listening as he pressed some more fur down and ruffled it. The hand in his own twitched and he stopped, squeezing back and letting his other hand do the ruffling instead.

“Ziziks has one that takes up the whole sky on certain nights,” He paused and tilted his head back, letting skeletal fingers scratch gently over his shoulders and neck. He sighed quietly, eyes closed, before he continued, “People don’t go out though, on those nights.”

“N'why’s that…?” Hater mumbled, reaching out to pick at Wander’s shoes and put them on the floor. He pulled Wander up further onto the bed, shuffling back to lean against the headboard with his legs crossed and the other alien kept safely in the cross of his legs.

“It’s not seen as a good night, I reckon they’re missing out,” He tilted his head back further to smile up at Hater, “It’s a very pretty night sky.”

“You’d say that anyway.”

“Yep,” He giggled softly, shifting up to kiss Hater’s chin. He smiled against the overlord’s jaw for a moment before Hater moved and returned the gesture. Wander let go of his hand, letting both skeletal hands cup his face and angle him into another kiss. It was awkward, the nomad forced to crane his neck back until he was laid down with Hater’s legs on either side. The overlord hunched over him, petting his his jaw and peppering kisses along the side of his face.

Wander laughed, genuinely happy as his fur was mussed and bony lips chuckled against his forehead. He rolled over, sitting up and bumping their heads together gently with a wide grin that Hater closed with his own. The overlord hummed, sending a comfortable rumble through Wander as he was pulled tighter into Hater’s hoodie.

The two slowly fell back, Wander held atop Hater with as much care as the lord could manage. Hater’s hands drifted, softly wrapping around the nomad’s waist, legs, petting down his back and over his head in a repeating pattern as the feeling of hatless-fur ingrained itself into his memory. Fur pressed against his bones, brushing as gently as Wander’s mouth was over him, while purrs vibrated through the wanderer’s body.

He reached for Wander, distracting him from tracing a line down the lord’s neck, and tipped his chin up to look him in the eye. Wet lines run down from his eyes, outlining the wrinkles in his face from millions of smiles. Hater thumbed over one of them, he ran a few fingers over the other line, leaving them there when furry lips pressed against them. “What’s wrong?” He whispered, fondness wreaking havoc on his own emotions as the wanderer rubbed his face along his bony hand and wrist.

“Nothing, I’m just… I’m really happy you’re here,” He hiccuped, laughing at himself, “I’m really, really… I really love you.” His eyes closed, his face half-turned into Hater’s hand as another few tears slipped from behind his eyelids. Fire played behind the darkness, tickling over his brain and nowhere near dampened by the trails down his cheeks. He opened his eyes, the fire retreating at the sight.

“I, uh, okay,” He wiped a few more tears from Wander’s face, giving up and instead kissing his forehead. The nomad laughed again, his own small hand coming up to rub at his face and clear away the lingering memories. His eyes were red, dark fur stained around them and his smile was tired at best, and still Hater leant up again to kiss him.

“Wander?”

His smile widened just a bit, and he peered down past his fist at the overlord, “Yeah?”

“I um, maybe, kind of like-,” Hater grumbled, stumbling over his words and obviously straining to get something out, “You’re good! In the I like you, maybe not like a friend, way.”

Hater paused before looking back at Wander, throwing up his arms, “That wasn’t supposed to make you sadder!”

“I’m not sad!” He laughed, quickly shifting to press his lips to Hater’s until he couldn’t keep his giggling quiet, “I’m really really happy, okay?”

Hater returned another kiss, despite being intent on yelling, “But you’re still crying!”

“Not all crying is sad,” He rubbed at his eyes again, sitting up on the overlord’s chest, “Just gotta let it go sometimes, honey bunches.”

“Sounds stupid… W-wander bunches?” He frowned, “Stupid.”

“I like it,” he nodded, nestling himself back into his spot atop Hater.

“Still stupid,” He frowned for a few more seconds, before letting his face relax, “…Star hat?”

“Whatever you like, sweetie,” He chuckled, ignoring the grumbling and succumbing to his exhaustion.


End file.
